Abstract:
Some years ago, one of us raised an abstract point with one of the denizens
of South Africa’s policy community. The aim was not to expose the issue at
hand to the rich array of thinking theoretically that has flourished in recent
times – theory from the South, identity, feminism, environmentalism and
the like. No. The intervention mildly critiqued the assumptions that lay
behind the idea of regional security in the sub-continent. The dismissive
response revealed a low threshold for the world of ideas – let alone, the act
of theorising – in policy discourse. ‘The problem with you, Professor’, the
expert opined, ‘is that the kind of question you always ask, doesn’t get us
very far’. It hasn’t always been the case that the raising of ideas branded
one as the philistine at an ambassador’s lunch-table where this particular
encounter took place.
